


don't kiss knives

by celeste9



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Dark Side Rey, F/F, Sparring, Trick or Treat: Treat, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-09 02:47:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16441547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: Phasma knows Rey doesn't choose to train with her for the challenge of it. There is something else behind it; Phasma only has to figure out what it is.





	don't kiss knives

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shiningstar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiningstar/gifts).



> The title is from Daphne Gottlieb.

Phasma doesn’t trust this.

Rey has been here four months and Phasma doesn’t trust it. Ren is an idiot who thinks with his dick and his ego, and Rey has no interest in stroking either. She pretends well enough for the latter, lets Ren believe he’s teaching her, and somehow he misses the calculation in her eyes.

Phasma doesn’t.

Rey likes to practice her technique on Phasma; she claims Phasma is the only one who isn’t scared of her and that she likes the challenge. Phasma doesn’t bow, doesn’t give inches to the Jedi walking a darker path.

When Phasma pushes back against Rey’s twin lightsabers with her baton, sending one clattering down to the ground, her voice echoes with disapproval from within her helmet even as Rey grins up at her. “I should never be able to press my advantage like this. You have the Force.”

“Maybe I allow you to. Maybe I let you gain ground on purpose.” Rey presses closer, tongue darting out to wet her lower lip, before she spins away and forces Phasma to raise her baton to meet Rey’s downward strike. “Let you think you’re winning. Make it a bit more fun.”

“Training is an exercise. It shouldn’t be fun.”

Rey laughs. “Of course it should be fun. Feel the power, Captain. This is the only way to live.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

Rey twirls her wrist as she steps nimbly back for a breather, a little flourish of her lightsaber that Phasma has told her again and again is needlessly showy and serves no purpose. “Why, I’m here to learn from my master, of course.” The twist of her mouth is mocking.

“Of course,” Phasma repeats, and hopes her tone comes through the voice modulator appropriately.

By the way Rey’s eyes light up, Phasma thinks it did.

“Do you ever take this off?” Rey asks, brushing her lightsaber near enough to Phasma’s helmet that she can hear the hum, feel the heat. “I hear the talk. Some of the troopers wonder if you’re human, think maybe you must be a droid, or maybe you’re the only alien in the First Order. Some of them think you must be horrifically disfigured.” She waves the saber again, tauntingly. “Some of them are convinced you’re hiding the face of their wet dreams.”

Phasma scoffs. She knocks Rey’s lightsaber aside and doesn’t deign to answer, moving forward and making Rey take the defense.

This was always Rey’s idea, Phasma knows. Training with her. Ren would never choose to share his student. Phasma wonders sometimes what is truly behind it, what Rey’s motive is. She may say that Phasma is a challenge but that is only partly true. Phasma fights and Phasma survives but she has no connection to the Force, not even an inkling. She is no true challenge to someone like Rey, not when Kylo Ren is four floors above.

There is something else behind it but Phasma has yet to determine what that is. Rey remains a puzzle that Phasma aches to solve.

Phasma dislikes puzzles she doesn’t know the solution to.

“I could slice it right off,” Rey says, and she moves so quickly that she catches Phasma off-guard, has her lightsaber to Phasma’s temple before she can react. Phasma would be dead were this a real fight.

Furious shame rises up that she would be so careless against this dangerous, taunting girl. She imagines the burn of the saber, wonders if Rey even needs the weapon to burn Phasma through.

But this isn’t a real fight and Rey isn’t finished with Phasma yet. Instead Rey mimes cutting through the chrome helmet and then extinguishes her blade. Phasma lowers her baton to her side.

Rey doesn’t step back so Phasma doesn’t either. She imagines she can feel Rey’s warm breath on her skin then shakes herself. Idiotic thought, even if she wasn’t covered head to toe in armor.

“Or,” Rey says, “I could order you to remove it. You have to do as I say.”

Phasma remains still and quiet.

“I could unclasp it myself,” Rey says, and raises her hand. The helmet seems to quiver faintly. “I could remove it without touching.”

The helmet settles again and Rey lowers her hand. Phasma still says nothing.

“Do you know what I think?” Rey asks. “I think you’re just a woman. Like me.”

_Just a woman. Like me._

“Not like you,” Phasma says, and tightens her grip around her baton.

Rey smiles, the same one she gifts to her enemies in the middle of battle, just before she kills them. It’s a feral promise that sends a shiver down Phasma’s spine.

She ignores it.

“We’ll see,” Rey says, and bends to retrieve her fallen lightsaber, clipping both hilts to her belt as she straightens. She turns and walks away, the sway of her hips surely deliberate.

Phasma squeezes her fist around her baton and breathes.

She doesn’t trust Rey or her motives. She doesn’t trust any of it.

But she is intrigued all the same.


End file.
